Wash. Post Editor Compares Obama's Newtown Shooting Speech to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

It was a somber weekend following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children dead on Friday. Last night, President Barack Obama passionately addressed the nation, speaking at a Newtown, Connecticut, interfaith vigil for the victims of the horrific attack. Following his speech, Washington Post associated editor David Maraniss was apparently so moved that he took to Twitter to compare the president's words to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

"People will long remember what Barack Obama said in Newtown...his Gettysburg address," Maraniss tweeted.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an interfaith vigil for the shooting victims from Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 16, 2012 at Newtown High School in Newtown, Connecticut. Credit: Getty Images

Just before making this intriguing comparison, he highlighted the "many levels" he saw present in Obama's speech, noting that it included: "philosophical, sorrowful determined universal, simple [and] beautiful" themes.

Not everyone agrees with this assessment. Columnist and commentator Charles Krauthammer, for one, called the address "highly political." And Jim Hoft on the conservative blog Gateway Pundit also seemed to disagree with Maraniss' assessment, writing, "Lincoln wrote his speeches, was fighting a Civil War and actually matched his words with deeds. Obama has done nothing on the weapons front except run guns to Mexico."

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